A sweet rescue cat with extra toes is melting hearts this Mother’s Day after taking in six orphaned kittens as if they were her own babies.
Mama Mittens, a polydactyl cat living at California’s Helen Woodward Animal Center, has officially become the ultimate foster mom after going from raising one kitten to caring for seven almost overnight.
And honestly, people online can’t get enough of her giant paws and even bigger heart.
The adorable cat arrived at the shelter on April 8 alongside her biological kitten, Socks, after the pair were rescued from the Long Beach area. Shelter workers quickly noticed Mama Mittens was a polydactyl cat, meaning she was born with extra toes because of a harmless genetic condition.
Her kitten appears to have inherited the same oversized paws.
Around the same time Mama Mittens arrived, six tiny orphaned kittens were also brought to the shelter after being rescued from the same area. The kittens were only a few weeks old and had no mother to care for them, leaving their future uncertain.
That’s when Mama Mittens stepped in.
According to the shelter, the loving cat immediately accepted all six orphaned kittens and began caring for them alongside her own baby.
“Overnight, Mama Mittens went from a single mom of one to a single mom of seven,” said Courtney Williams, the shelter’s foster assistant manager.
“Animals are amazing,” Williams added. “Mama Mittens didn’t just decide to welcome them for nourishment; she immediately began to provide each of them with the love they’d been missing.”
Now the growing feline family includes Mama Mittens, her daughter Socks, and six adopted kittens named Flip, Flop, Jean, Jacket, Hat, and Scarf.
Photos shared by the shelter show the giant blended litter snuggled together while Mama Mittens proudly watches over all seven babies with her extra-large paws wrapped around them.
Shelter staff say all of the kittens are doing incredibly well under Mama Mittens’ care and are now “flourishing.”
Once the kittens are old enough to be weaned, they’ll all become available for adoption after undergoing health checks and being spayed or neutered.
For now, though, Mama Mittens seems perfectly happy being the exhausted mother of seven tiny kittens — and the internet is absolutely obsessed with her.